


Leave me breathless

by serapheim



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Asphyxiation, BBC Sherlock - Freeform, Dominance, Gen, M/M, Mild Kink, Pre-Slash, Silence Kink, Submission
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-10-20
Updated: 2011-10-20
Packaged: 2017-10-24 19:40:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,385
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/267118
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/serapheim/pseuds/serapheim
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What started as an ordinary gibe form Sherlock and what somehow spiked sudden anger in the gentle doctor, caused something he never could have expected.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Leave me breathless

It really was too easy. Granted, Sherlock was taller, but John hadn’t survived in Afghanistan only thanks to pure luck, although that was also the case. He had had basic military training; he knew how to hold a gun and how to defend himself bare hands. So really overpowering Sherlock was a matter of seconds; _a second_.

Hooking his ankle, tripping him, making him tumble down on the sofa. John was short, but he wasn’t exactly baby light. So pressing down on Sherlock’s thighs with all his weight, one hand keeping the detective’s long limbs immobile, while the other pressed on the collarbone. Being knocked down, so swift and so unexpectedly, tore a surprised gasp from Sherlock’s lips, _John_.

One of Sherlock’s arms was squeezed between his body and the sofa’s back. The other was pinned by John’s weight, wedged intimately between their bellies. It should have felt awkward, or strange, or bloody daft. But it was brilliant.

Wide opened, pale grey eyes, which in the semi-darkness of their flat were shining like emeralds: Sherlock rendered speechless was a sight to behold. This look, this unexpected vulnerability made John feel momentarily lost. What started as an ordinary gibe form Sherlock and what somehow spiked sudden anger in the gentle doctor, caused something he never could have expected.

Sherlock was warm and solid beneath him. Still one moment and the next one trying to dislodge John, writhing under him. _Cut it off_ , he said. But John simply held him tighter, pressing him down even more. And then Sherlock opened his mouth and started recalling every single detail and symptom of a post traumatic stress disorder John undoubtedly didn’t have, but Sherlock was saying it all: such words as _psychological trauma_ and _irritability_ and _phobia_. And John just wanted him to shut up.

So he pressed the heel of his hand onto Sherlock’s throat, cutting the words flow instantaneously. Sherlock’s eyes widened and then narrowed, as he most obviously was thinking, calculating, _deducing_ John, like he always did. But this time there was no ulterior motive behind John’s actions; he acted without thinking and he didn’t know and couldn’t think of the way how to proceed. It was a stalemate, a point when if John eased his hold a bit, Sherlock would surely throw him off. And John wasn’t sure he wanted Sherlock to be free, just yet.

And then Sherlock would talk, he would come up with a million of reasons for John’s actions, analysing every twitch of a muscle, every nuisance, until he made everything simple and clear. Until he made John think and believe what he never expected to think or believe. Until Sherlock put his thoughts into _John’s_ head.

John’s hand wasn’t pressing very hard on Sherlock’s throat. But it still made it impossible to talk, although, _of course_ , Sherlock being Sherlock tried to do nevertheless.

What, he rasped out. The word crawled its way up the detective’s larynx and spilled through his full lips. It was barely a whisper, but it made the tissues under John’s hand tremble and vibrate. And it was _magnificent_.

So John turned his hand so, that it would wrap around Sherlock’s throat, but he made it almost a caress. The skin was translucently pale and John had to admit to himself, that he had longed to touch it for some time. Adam’s apple under his palm was a pleasant unevenness that bobbed up and down, when Sherlock tried to swallow.  
Somehow John remembered one of their first cases together. The Blind Banker, he called it in his blog. He remembered Sherlock coming out of Soo Lin Yao’s apartment, breathless and talking in an oddly pitched, strained voice. Back then John didn’t know what it meant. But later after Gollum tried to strangle the detective, his voice acquired the same quality. And it brought goosebumps down John’s back.

Without thinking he pressed harder, making Sherlock choke, watching his face flush with blood. And then he let go. As the tall man gasped for breath underneath him, John thought, dear God, because it was probably the most erotic thing he had ever heard in his life.

 _What_ , Sherlock started to say, but John simply grabbed his throat again, not pressing hard, but making his grip firm. The message was understood, because the detective snapped his mouth shut immediately. The attentive eyes followed his every movement, though. John let himself relax a bit, sinking into Sherlock’s body as if into the cushions. Such an intimate press of bodies, he could feel a _thud thud thud_ of the detective’s heartbeat. Could feel the rise up and down of his chest. Uneven breathing and staccato of heartbeat and it was he, he, _John_ , who made this.

The thought was intoxicating.

The older man let his fingers caress the skin gently. So soft and yet so masculine, a trace of stubble appearing here and there. A jaw edge was sharp and fragile looking. John could name all the bones, all muscles hidden under this skin. He could put Sherlock’s body apart and collect it anew, fitting the parts with exact precision of a surgeon. He knew the secret vulnerabilities of the human body, learned long ago where to press to leave his opponent immobilised with pain or deliver a quick death.

That knowledge was always there, in some part of his brain. But now it was all on the surface, in the lines of Sherlock’s angular face and his clear eyes. Maybe it was the insufferable smugness of his colleague, or maybe a ruthlessness with which he dealt with people around him, as if they were figures in his chess play. He claimed not to care, believed not to have a heart, but it was so obviously _here_ , so big and so brilliant; and sometimes John wondered if the infamous consulting detective was as smart as he claimed to be. Because even a fool like John could read the signs.

Sherlock did not hate people, nor was he a sociopath. On the contrary, he longed for people’s praise, for the acceptance, for a casual friend’s touch. He couldn’t say it, he couldn’t voice it out loud. And John doubted that Sherlock even fully acknowledged this fact himself. But he needed other people, wanted to be near them. And so it happened that the only one who wasn’t scared away, the only one who stayed long to learn this truth was John. Simple, uncomplicated, _ordinary_ John, who had his own share of skeletons in the closet and still woke up from post traumatic nightmares every other night.

But it was _him_. And it was brilliant.

Sherlock needed him. A faithful assistant, a watchdog, a sidekick, a flatmate, a friend - someone to admire him, to watch out for him, to follow him, to take care of him and to ground him. And even after all those months spent doing just that, it was still an astounding realisation.

So John did exactly what Sherlock wanted him to do. He squeezed his hand around the other’s throat gently, stealing Sherlock’s breath, making him fight for oxygen. There was a moment of absolute stillness, and then Sherlock relaxed beneath him. The body went limp, the fight gone from the limbs, the muscles relaxing. Now it felt as if Sherlock welcomed John’s weight, as if he never dreamed of breaking free.

And it was even better.

Their legs entwined, no more wrestling. John’s other hand grasped Sherlock’s hair, while the detective arched into him, as if he wanted to get even closer. John moved on a pure instinct, leaned to his ear, a perfect shell of pinna, and whispered, _What do you want? I can give you anything_. And it was true, because only a mad man could deny the greatest Sherlock Holmes anything.

The air moved from the parted lips through the throat, through the trachea, a tube made of muscles and cartilages, so brilliant and so fragile, to bronchi. The squeezed larynx proved it difficult to speak, but somehow Sherlock managed to rasp out one word, the only possible answer - _You_.

 _Levator labii superioris, zygomaticus minor, zygomaticus major, risorius_ \- one by one the muscles were tensing, pulling up, and down, and everywhere at once, and John was smiling.

And squeezing his fingers tighter.

  
//

Wednesday, October 19, 2011


End file.
